Page 17 of Marked By the Enemy
I didn’t blink and shot to my feet. “Would you like to find out?”
Darian set his goblet down. “Enough.”
The bond rose. I sat back, nostrils flaring. The red-robed fae looked away, cheeks flushed pink. The feast ended with a soft chime. Plates vanished. Candles dimmed. Nobles rose in a wave of silk and perfume.
Darian stood. So did I. We walked side by side to the door.
When we arrived at the hall, he said, “You didn’t embarrass me.”
“Good. I wasn’t trying to impress you.”
He glanced at me. “You didn’t have to.”
“Why give me this dagger?”
“To see if you’d try again.”
“And what if I did?”
“It would have been entertaining for everyone to see how the bond wouldn’t let you.”
“So I’m entertaining, am I?” I hissed.
“I would say. I am glad you didn’t try to kill me again, though. I am glad that you were silent.”
At the stairs we stopped, and I frowned. “Why summon me here if all you want is silence?”
He gazed past me toward the darkened corridor. “I wanted them to see you. And I wanted to see what you would do.”
“And?”
“You didn’t disappoint.”
I was performing a moving meditation in my chamber that night, on a sheepskin rug and under the light of the half moon, which beamed through my window.
The phase of the moon reminded me that I had been living in the Moon Court as Prince Darian’s Consort for one week. After I finished, he opened the door without announcing himself and stepped inside as if I’d called him.
“Did you hear me earlier?” I asked.
“Sometimes I hear and see you, when the bond chooses to echo.”
I turned toward the fire and swallowed.
He stepped beside me. Not touching. Not towering, even though he was a foot taller than me. “They liked you tonight.”
“Some of them did. Some of them wanted me gone.”
“And what did you want?”
I squinted at him. “To kill you. To leave. To be rich and free. But I didn’t do any of those things.”
He lowered his shoulders and nodded slowly. “You’re learning.”
But I didn’t want to learn him. I didn’t want to become fluent in his moods or softened by his rare honesty. And yet, I was.
We stood in silence for a long time. He turned away slightly, and I thought he looked sad. Was I being too cruel to him? For a moment, there was an ache in my throat as I wondered what emotional wounds he carried.
But then I balled my hands and inhaled a sharp breath through my nose. After the feast at the Silver Table, he had admitted to me that he found itamusing that the bond controlled me and wouldn’t let me kill him, and that was why he had passed the knife onto me, to make it a funny show. He was evil.
